Foundation Sprint Differentiation

Foundation Sprint Differentiation

Day 1 afternoon of a Foundation Sprint. The team converts the morning's Basics frame (customer, problem, advantage, competitors) into a defensible strategic position. The output is a one-page Mini Manifesto that the team and Decider sign as the Day 1 strategic summary.

Family contract: docs/reference/skill-families/foundation-sprint-skills-contract.md. This skill is a member of foundation-sprint-skills.

When to Use

• Day 1 afternoon of a Foundation Sprint, immediately after lunch.
• The Basics bundled artifact is signed by the Decider; the customer, problem, advantage, and competitor map are committed.
• The team is ready to commit to a strategic position the product will occupy.

When NOT to Use

• Basics is unresolved or under negotiation. Differentiation depends on a stable input frame.
• The team has already pre-chosen differentiators and just wants ratification. The skill is built for genuine decision-making; ratification theater wastes the afternoon.
• The team has lost the room: low energy, no Decider, time pressure. Postpone or split into shorter blocks rather than rush.
• This is a follow-up sprint and the existing differentiation still holds. Use Magic Lenses directly with the existing position.

What This Skill Produces

A single bundled artifact with five sections:

1. Scored differentiator candidates: a table of 8-15 candidate differentiators scored on three customer-perceived dimensions (customer pull, team can deliver, hard to copy). The top scorers advance to the 2x2 chart.
2. Two chosen differentiators: the two the team commits to as the strategic position.
3. 2x2 differentiation chart: a customer-perceived chart plotting the chosen differentiators against the competitor set from Basics. The team's product position is named.
4. Decision principles: 3-5 principles operationalizing the differentiation. Each principle is a future-product rule ("we will always prefer X over Y").
5. Mini Manifesto: a one-page strategic summary written in the team's voice, naming the customer, problem, position, and what the product is NOT.

See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for the Brainshelf example.

Sequence (150 minutes)

Step 1: Generate differentiator candidates (15-25 min)

Each team member produces 3-5 candidate differentiators silently. Cluster duplicates, then surface the full set (8-15 candidates is typical). The candidates can be classic (speed, price, simplicity, breadth, depth, trust) or custom (specific to this product or market).

Step 2: Score candidates (25-40 min)